


We will not meet again

by smaragdbird



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Memory Loss, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 19:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13060545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: K-2SO gets captured by the Empire. He possesses a lot of valuable information about the rebellion and he knows that a rescue in time is unlikely. But it's okay, he has a emergency subroutine just for this kind of situation that allows him to destroy his memory core. It'll wipe everything and reset him to factory status but it's better than letting the information he has be used against Cassian and the rebellion.When Cassian finally gets to K-2SO because he would've never left his only friend behind there is nothing left of him.





	We will not meet again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this ](https://rogueonekink.dreamwidth.org/1084.html?thread=498492#cmt498492) prompt

Ever since he had been captured, K-2SO had spent every single moment to analyse the situation around him and find a way out. Or at least a way to keep the Imperial technician from opening his memory core and extracting the information saved there. 

He had compiled 179 different scenarios so far. None of them had a success rate above 0.01%. The main problem was that he didn’t know if or when reinforcements would arrive, which was his only way out of here. That, or if he was left alone for long enough to escape his entrapment and blend in with the other Kx droids on this ship...if there were other Kx droids on this ship. So far he hadn’t seen any and likelihood was only at 5%. Kx droids were expensive and normally found on sensitive stations or star destroyer commanded by an admiral.

Alternatively an escape pod or even an airlock would do. He could survive in space and send a signal to Cassian as soon as the star destroyer had left. 

The intelligence officer who had caught him had to have had experience with rebellious droids since he had disabled K-2SO’s hydraulic systems before bringing him back online. That was a problem too. Even if his restraints were somehow lifted he couldn’t actually make a run for it. He would’ve tried to talk his way out of the situation but his voice box had been disabled too.

Cassian would come, sooner or later, if he could. From the chatter he had picked up from the stormtroopers the death toll on and around Scarif had been appalling on both sides though some rebels had apparently escaped. He hadn’t heard anything about other prisoners, which didn’t mean that there weren’t any.

K-2SO had fused the hinges on the back of his head shortly after Cassian had reprogrammed him. He hadn’t wanted anyone to be able to get into his head easily and Cassian had respected that wish. Right now it bought him a few precious extra minutes as the Imperial technician had to drill through the thick titanium layer that his head casing was made off.

If the rebellion had received the Death Star plans then all their energy would go into realising its destruction. They wouldn’t have the resources to rescue anyone, organic or inorganic. Even if Cassian was alive and free he wouldn’t come for K-2SO. Not now in any case. A few days or weeks, after the destruction of the Death Star, then Cassian would surely come if he could. If he was alive. He had to be alive. Just because K-2SO hadn’t seen a chance for him to survive didn’t mean he hadn’t. K-2SO hadn’t been wrong before but there was a first time for everything.

Hope. He knew the word for what he was feeling but organics always used it as a positive word. The emotion generated by his protocols did not feel positive; it felt like lying to himself because the alternative was that much worse.

The fused titanium plates weren’t K-2SO’s only line of defence against unwanted access of his memory core. All Kx droids came with internal firewalls for storage of sensitive data and K-2SO had perfected his in every possible moment. The encryption coding he used was the best you could get outside the Empire.

Unfortunately the Empire had the best decryption software available anywhere in the galaxy, so the firewalls wouldn’t keep forever. The likelihood of a rescue mission had increased slightly but insignificantly. He would have to stall them for at least a few more hours to even raise the chance itself by a significant factor and the chance of that happening was so low it wasn’t worth computing to the last decimal place.

There was an alternative. Cassian had his suicide pill, K-2SO had an emergency reset written into his code. It was a standard part of a Kx droid protocol but like so many other things he had modified it. The emergency reset would return him to factory settings and scrub every single additional piece of coding from his system. It was also irreversible. 

The whole process would take three seconds. From the speed of which the Imperial technician was working their way through his firewalls K-2SO estimated that he would need to initiate the emergency reset when the technician breached his second to last firewall. He was giving himself an extra second in this scenario but the chance that one second would make a difference was once again statistically insignificant.

In total he had less than a minute.

K-2SO had often heard organics say that their lives would flash before their eyes when they had thought they would die. It was a nice notion, except that he had no intention of going through all of his memories in the time he had left. Too many of them were negative like Jenoport. 

It would have been easy to simulate an impossible scenario where Cassian would come and rescue him at the last possible moment but he didn’t want to spend his last moments lying to himself. Instead he picked the first time he had seen Cassian laugh, what it felt like when their hands were laced together and that incredibly fond expression Cassian had sometimes when he looked at him.

He kept that image in his mind, the way Cassian’s eyes would soften, the corners of his mouth would lift as his lips would curl into a smile and his dark hair would fall into his face as Cassian would look at him as if he was something incredibly precious that could not be replaced.

That was the image that took up the last few nanoseconds of his existence before he triggered the emergency reset.

/

Six hours, that was how long it had taken Cassian to get onto the star destroyer where the Imperials held K-2SO prisoner. He would have been there sooner if Jyn hadn’t pushed him straight into the claws of a medic who wasn’t convinced that Cassian could stage a rescue mission with a few broken bones.

The star destroyer was buzzing with activity as did the entire Imperial fleet. Rumours were flying far and wild since the battle of Scarif, some even said the Empire had used its new super weapon on Alderaan after they had captured a rebel leader fleeing Scarif.

Cassian had seen the destruction of Jedhaa, he didn’t need any more convincing that the Empire would destroy an entire, pacifist planet just to make an example of it. He could only hope that the plans they had sent Admiral Raddus had made it back to Rebel Command. K-2SO would’ve happily let him know the exact chances and Cassian had never missed him more. Sure, they had gone on separate missions every now and then but they had never been apart because one of them had been captured.

“Can I help you, sir?” The junior officer of the brig section of the ship asked when Cassian approached him. 

“I hope so Cadet”, Cassian replied and handed over his identity pen. “Joreth Sward, Admiral Grendeef send me to requisition the Kx unit you acquired from Scarif.”

“A Kx unit?” The cadet frowned and checked his screen, tapping it a few times. “The one that was scheduled for interrogation?”

“That one exactly.” It was only through years of undercover work that Cassian managed to keep his voice calm, almost disinterested. He was only an assistant, running an errand for his senior officer.

“It’s not here anymore”, the cadet said, after tapping on his screen a few more times. “We send it down to the repair section. Do you really think you can get anything out of it?”

“Admiral Grendeef knows what he is doing”, Cassian said with enough coldness in his voice to make the cadet pale.

“Of course, sir, I didn’t mean to question the Admiral’s decision, sir.”

“I didn’t think so”, Cassian said. “Now I’d appreciate directions to your repair section.”

/

“I am K-2SO, how may I assist you?” Kay’s voice was perfectly bland like a droid should sound like and like he never had.

“Knock it off, Kay”, Cassian muttered under his breath. “It’s not funny.”

“My designation is K-2SO”, Kay repeated monotonously. “I am a Kx security and analysis droid in service of the Galactic Empire. What is your designation?”

“I swear I am going to reprogram you as soon as we get back”, Cassian said. All the times Kay had jeopardised them with his shitty lying skills and suddenly he decided to play the role straighter than he had before Cassian had reprogrammed him.

“I do not require coding maintenance”, Kay replied, sounding more like a droid than he ever had. “I was reset five standard hours ago and my systems are up to date.”

Cassian stopped dead in his tracks. “What did you say?”

“I do not require coding maintenance”, Kay repeated. “I was reset five standard hours ago and my systems are up to date.”

“What do you mean reset? I checked the protocols. You were scheduled for interrogation, not...” He trailed off when he realised what that meant. “Who reset you?”

A moment of silence and then Kay answered, “The reset was due to the release of an emergency subroutine to prevent information saved on my hard drive to fall into enemy hands.”

Fear crawled up his arms and settled between his shoulder blades. Its chilling hand reached out and gently squeezed his throat. “Who triggered the release?”

More silence, then. “I did.”

The hand squeezed harder and Cassian felt like he had trouble breathing. “Reverse it.”

“I am unable to comply with that order.”

A cold sweat broke out on his skin. “I am your master and I order you to reverse the emergency reset.” Cassian repeated with a shaking voice. K-2SO would kick his ass for calling himself his master but it was a price Cassian would gladly pay.

“The emergency reset is irreversible.”

“Bantha shit! I order you to reverse it!” Cassian yelled, grabbed K-2SO’s upper arms. “You always have a backup plan for your backup plan. I know you have one for this situation. Reverse the emergency reset!” He nearly screamed the last words at K-2SO.

“Negative. Reversing emergency reset is not possible.”

Cassian ran a hand through his hair. There had to be a solution to this. There had to be. Maybe this whole thing was a lie. Maybe the Imperials hadn’t been able to get through Kay’s firewalls and instead had just reinstalled the Imperial obedience protocols. Kay would’ve never deleted his memory core. He would’ve known that Cassian would come and rescue him.

“I am Joreth Sward”, Cassian said, taking a deep breath. “You’ve been assigned to me. That’s why I’m going to take a look at your coding.”

“I understand”, Kay said and Cassian wished he could just shake some sense back into him. Once he had disabled the Imperial obedience protocols Kay would never let him live this down. He was insufferable that way and Cassian couldn’t wait to hear him complain again. 

Kay willingly opened the back of his head to give Cassian access to the connection port, something he hadn’t done since the reprogramming. Cassian had helped him to weld it shut since he had understood Kay’s wish for autonomy.

Imperial obedience protocols were laughably easy to hack. The last time Cassian had botched it and deleted more than necessary since at the time he had also been gotten shot at, but this time he was careful to delete only the protocols and nothing else. Kay’s memory core would take over once it was free, he was sure.

“There”, he said as he had erased the last line. “Feeling better?”

No answer. Kay was just staring blankly into the air as if he was waiting for Cassian to finish.

“Kay, are you feeling better?” Cassian asked again.

“My name is K-2SO, I was built by Arakyd Tech to serve the Galactic Empire. How may I assist you, Joreth Sward?”

The fear was back, squeezing his throat and making it hard to breathe but Cassian forced himself to keep calm. “It’s not funny, Kay. Just tell me you’re okay and we can get out of here.”

“I’m not sure I can follow you, Joreth Sward.”

Cassian let out a shaky breath. Kay would hate him for this but he seemed he had no other choice. He opened the data of Kay’s memory core, half expecting to feel an electric surge or get hit for daring to invade Kay’s privacy like this.

Nothing happened and when Cassian checked his data pad he saw why. Kay’s memory core was empty. Frantically Cassian checked that he had opened the right data core. Maybe Kay had mislabelled them to throw off the Empire but the others were empty too. It was as if Kay had been reset to factory conditions.

The datapad fell from Cassian’s slack hands. “Kay” he said but K-2SO showed no reaction. He reached out, wanting to touch him but recoiled at the last moment. This wasn’t Kay anymore. “Why did you do it?”

“I don’t understand your question.”

“Why did you trigger the emergency reset?”

“To prevent the enemy from gaining access to my hard drive and any information stored there.”

“Five hours ago?”

“Yes.”

Five hours ago he had been held in med bay and nowhere near a rescue mission. He had thought he had more time but the Empire had evidently found Kay in front of the vault and had drawn the right conclusions for once. And Kay had done the only thing he could’ve done in that situation. He had rather sacrificed himself than let the Empire get their hands on him. 

“Why did you disable the Imperial obedience protocols?” K-2SO asked, a thin layer of curiosity in his tone. The personality matrix of Kx droids was highly competent and quickly evolving. That was why the Empire deleted them regularly. That was why Kay had become who he had been.

“Just…” Cassian found it hard to even look at him. “You’re free to go.”

“Go where?” Left alone K-2SO would become someone again but he wouldn’t be Kay. He wouldn’t be Cassian’s Kay.

“Wherever you want to go.” Cassian found it hard to speak to him, too. “Just go.”

“You are not an Imperial.” K-2SO tilted his head slightly as he made that statement.

“No, I...just go already!” He yelled the last few words in K-2SO’s direction.

The droid recoiled as if Cassian had hit him. Kay had never shown that kind of reaction. He had usually taken Cassian’s dark moods with indifference and a snarky comment and sometimes he had offered comfort but he had never recoiled. Kay had never been afraid of him.

“What about you?” K-2SO asked timidly. “If you stay here there’s a big chance the Empire will kill you.”

Kay would’ve told him the chances of getting killed down to the last decimal place. He had taken a strange pleasure in reminding Cassian of his mortality while being very cross if Cassian did get hurt. 

“I’ll be…” Cassian started but he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. “Just go. It’s a big galaxy out there. You’ll find something worthwhile doing.”

K-2SO tilted his head to the other side. “You’re a strange person, Joreth Sward. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

“Maybe”, Cassian said.

It was a lie.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [ here](http://smaragdbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
